wish he had never become captain. despite so many test wins and two world cups, the two ashes defeats, the two series defeats in india and the home series loss against SA kind of overshadow his stunning batsmanship. people get confused between (the wonderful batsman + mostly successful captain) and (the big series losing skipper + struggler in India). somehow, sachin and lara with **** captaincy records seem to be judged purely as batsmen. if ponting were to be judged on batting alone he should be very close to them. with his great captaincy record in tests and ODIs and his stunning fielding he should be bunched along with them as an all-time legend. but somehow he is ranked below them everytime. i hope posterity is kinder to punter, though. he should not be a top 50 cricketer forever. he should be upgraded to the top 25.

congrats punter. keep going on and on..... and retire 500 runs and 5 centuries short of sachin.

I would be interested to fast forward 50 years into the future. I don't think future generations will appreciate the likes of Ponting and Dravid and what they achieved. The modern day is full of so many cricketers who average > 50, and I can already imagine the stats tweaking that will one day occur to degrade the greats of this era.

It makes me understand how those who watched Sobers play are so defensive about his record. Cricket is a numbers game, but for someone like Ponting there are so many stories and context behind the impressive numbers he has put up.

It has been said that the last 2-3 years he has been out of form. But I don't agree with that, imo its just a phase in his career where things don't go right for him. There are players like Hussey who when out of form look all at sea and lose most of their strokes, but not Ponting. I have seen him in "good touch" so many times in the last 2 years that it simply cannot be bad form. He has a habit though of finding the fielders when he does get starts, which he did not do before. He still and always has gotten out for cheap scores, it's just his conversion rate that has hit a road-block in the last 2-3 years.

There are talks for example that he hits his pull strokes in the air and gets hit or mistimes pulls/hooks. Well the thing is he has always done that. You can find examples in the videos that robelinda posted that he has always hit the pull/hook shot in the air in some point in his innings, and many commentators have always said "He gives you a chance" when playing that shot. Those chances are coming much more frequently now though.

Because of his character and that seeming he rarely loses his shots makes me think that Ponting could still play for 5-10 more years and still be Australia's best batsmen. But the chances are he will quit for some other reason, but certainly he could bat till in his mid 40s if he wanted to.

I never want Ricky to retire. The last remaining cricketer from my childhood of watching Australia dominate. 150 Tests, and I can easily wheel out 50 or 60 great innings (today was one of them)

Same here. I will actually be devastated when he retires. He's the last link with all our great players from the 90s and 00s

Mark Waugh

"He's [Michael Clarke] on Twitter saying sorry for not walking? Mate if he did that in our side there'd be hell to play. AB would chuck his Twitter box off the balcony or whatever it is. Sorry for not walking? Jesus Christ man."

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it into a fruit salad